


need your light to shine

by SydneyHorses



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/F, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), this isnt huge edeleth but edelgard IS in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:55:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22927555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SydneyHorses/pseuds/SydneyHorses
Summary: Despite the war effort's success, Edelgard misses the professor in an all-encompassing kind of way. The loneliness gets to her sometimes, but there are more important things to think about.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 2
Kudos: 52





	need your light to shine

**Author's Note:**

> this was originally a tumblr prompt and then i got a little carried away! title and the idea of the fic taken from Streets of Gold by the Aviators! hope you enjoyed!

Edelgard is fundamentally a very lonely person. Everyone who once might have mitigated such a feeling is dead, and Hubert, for all his good intentions, will never be able to see her as his friend before his emperor. It isn’t a bad thing necessarily: she is not sure she will ever be able to see him as her friend over her accomplice, but it makes for a rather lonely existence.

There had been a time back at the academy when she had thought… but no, it does not do to dwell on such things at a time like this. She has a war to think about. Edelgard takes a deep breath and centers herself, pushing thoughts of the professor out of her mind. She has a war council meeting to run. Her personal feelings do not matter, not in the face of her ambitions. All that matters is that they are achieved. She will make all this death around her be worth something. None of it can be in vain.

The war council meeting is unproductive, although she is not sure what she expected. The Black Eagle Strike Force - her generals, her  _ friends  _ \- care too much for them to agree on anything. It would be sweet, if it wasn’t incredibly frustrating. The war effort is not going badly by any means, but morale sinks lower every day. Edelgard can rally her people and make them fight their hardest, but absolute devotion is not something you can inspire with words alone. They need a gesture, a sweeping victory that moves the war in their favor and causes them all to believe in her without question.

If only it were so easy to make that happen.

“Your majesty?” Hubert says, his voice breaking through her thoughts. 

Edelgard looks up, smoothing her skirts with her hands. “Yes?”

Hubert bows, the motion comforting in its familiarity, “I have that report you requested.”

“Of course,” she says, “Thank you, Hubert.”

Hubert sets the file down on her desk, then stans, hands clasped behind his back. He’s clearly holding something back: he knows her well enough that he would not wait for her to dismiss him. “There is another matter I wished to discuss with you, if you have the time.”

The question is a formality, nothing more. Hubert knows her schedule better than she does, and is fully aware that she has a fifteen minute gap before her next meeting. She gestures towards him to sit in the empty chair across from her, but he ignores her in favor of continuing to stand.

" You have seemed distracted recently,” he says. “I do not doubt your resolve or determination, but you must cast off whatever it is that is causing such turmoil.”

“Ah,” Edelgard says, laying her hands flat on her desk. “I see. You are right, I have been a bit lost in thought lately.” Hubert nods, his posture still ramrod straight. She is glad that he told her: this is not something he would have felt comfortable discussing so straightforwardly in years prior. “Thoughts of the millenium festival have plagued me, as of late. I will set such things aside.”

“She is dead,” Hubert responds. “A promise will not change that, no matter how much she intended to follow through with it.”

Edelgard looks down at her hands, “Yes. Of course. I know.”

“Be glad that all our former classmates are still alive,” Hubert advises. “They will not allow you to bear this burden alone, and neither will I.”

A shadow of a smile crosses Edelgard’s face. “Thank you Hubert.”

Hubert bows again, then turns and leaves her alone with her thoughts.

-

On nights like these, it is easier if Edelgard accepts that she is not going to get any more sleep than she already has. She sighs and pulls herself out of bed, dressing in silence and then setting out for a walk around the monastery grounds. The pale light of the sun is just cresting over the hills beyond the monastery. She hadn’t expected to, but she loves the monastery in a fierce, selfish kind of way. It seems unthinkable: the entire time she was there, she had known that all this temporary peace would fall apart in mere months. But regardless, it seems like part of her is always going to be that girl at the academy, relishing in the small happiness it had afforded her.

The sound of footsteps remind her of where she is, and she freezes, “Halt! Who’s there!”

“Edelgard?”

That voice… it can’t be. Edelgard turns, half expecting to see a ghost (although if this is who haunts her, over all of her siblings, that seems unfair), but instead, the professor stands there. There’s a smudge of dirt on her face, and her hair is unkempt and tangled, but it is her, absolutely her.

“Professor?” Edelgard says, hardly able to hear herself speak over the blood rushing in her ears. The goddess is a lie and there is no such thing as fate, but this is a blessing nonetheless. “It is really you? But I searched everywhere and never found a trace. Where have you  _ been? _ ”

Byleth’s face clouds, and her eyes dart downwards, her head bending slightly. “I was dead,” she says, her voice free of any indication that she is anything less than gravely serious.

“You can’t be joking!” Edelgard cries, hating how young she sounds in this instant. “It’s been five years since you disappeared! Do you have any idea how guilty I felt? How broken my heart was?”

Byleth steps closer, resting a hand gently on her arm, “I am sorry you were alone.”

Edelgard shakes her head, “I knew you were alive. I led everyone as best I could and fought with all my heart. It’s been a difficult path to walk alone.”

Byleth doesn’t hesitate, just brings her other hand up to squeeze Edelgard’s shoulder gently, “You are not alone.”

Edelgard closes her eyes for just a moment, then steps forward and wraps her arms around her professor, burying her face in the crook of Byleth’s neck. Her professor is right: she is not alone, and she will walk through this with Byleth at her side.

**Author's Note:**

> come follow me on tumblr @edelgardlesbians !!


End file.
